A national survey of barriers and facilitators to medications for opioid use disorder among legal-involved veterans in the Veterans Health Administration

Abstract

Background: Medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) are clinically effective at treating OUD among legal-involved populations. However, research shows that legal-involved veterans who receive care through the VHA have lower rates of MOUD use compared to non-legal-involved veterans. Education may be a key factor in intervention strategies to improve MOUD access. This study was a national survey of VHA staff to identify barriers to and facilitators of MOUD, as well as MOUD-related education needs for VHA staff, community partners, criminal justice partners, and legal-involved veterans. Method: A 98-item online survey was conducted to examine VHA staff perspectives (N = 218) around needed education, barriers to, and facilitators of MOUD for legal-involved veterans. Descriptive statistics were conducted and linear regression analyses were used to evaluate differences in perceptions by respondents’ current position at the VHA and their VHA facility’s rate of provision of MOUD among legal-involved veterans. Results: Respondents endorsed a need for education in all areas of MOUD (e.g., existing medications for the treatment of OUD) for VHA staff and providers, community partners, criminal justice partners, and legal-involved veterans. VHA staff perceived barriers to MOUD for legal-involved veterans to include stigma and complicated guidelines around MOUD and OUD treatment. Facilities with low rates of MOUD use highlighted barriers including MOUD conflicting with the philosophy of the local VHA facility and provider stigma toward patients with OUD. Perceptions of efficacy of MOUD differed by respondents’ current position at the VHA such that substance use disorder treatment providers perceived buprenorphine and methadone as more effective compared to Veterans Justice Specialists. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest a need for an educational intervention emphasizing the evidence supporting use of MOUD as a lack of knowledge about these medications was considered a barrier to access, whereas gaining education about MOUD was a facilitator to access. Education strategies specifically tailored to address VHA facility-level differences may help address barriers to MOUD experienced by legal-involved veterans.

Keywords:

• Opioid addiction
• medication assisted treatment of opioid
• veterans
• criminal justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award [Number R21DA041489]. Dr. Timko was supported by a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Senior Research Career Scientist award [RCS 00-001]. Dr. Harris was funded as a VA HSR&D Research Career Scientist [RCS 14-232]. Dr. Finlay was supported by a VA HSR&D Career Development Award [CDA 13-279]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position nor policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or the United States government. The VA had no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.